Tyrannosaurs may have nibbled each other when mating

HOW DO PORCUPINES mate? Very carefully! An old joke, but one that applies even more forcefully to creatures with big, sharp teeth than it does to those with big, sharp spines. And few creatures have had teeth bigger and sharper than those ofx.How tyrannosaurs mated will never be known for sure. But Caleb Brown of the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology, in Alberta, Canada, thinks, as he describes in , that it might have involved what amounts to the ultimate in love-biting. Previous examinations of tyrannosaur skull bones have revealed scars that look as if they were delivered by other tyrannosaurs. Aware of the fact that many animal species bite one another during battles over access to mates, and sometimes even bite their mates during courtship (an endearment from which is not exempt), he and his colleagues thought it worth looking at these bites in more detail.